Dra. María Luisa Izaguirre-Mayoral
Dra. María Luisa Izaguirre-Mayoral (Caracas 21/06/1952) carried out her undergraduate studies in the Faculty of Life Sciences, Central University of Venezuela, followed by a master’s degree obtained in the Faculty of Life Sciences, Weizmann Institute of Science with a PhD degree granted by the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, funded by a full scholarship granted by the Venezuelan`s Government.
Her scientific career took place at the Center of Microbiology and Cell Biology, Venezuelan Scientific Research Institute (IVIC, 1983-2013), where she became: head of the Center, head of the Electron Microscopy laboratory, head of the Plant Biotechnology and Virology laboratory, head of the pilot plant producing rhizobia inoculants for grain legumes, coordinator of postgraduate studies in Microbiology, and director of PhSc thesis. In addition to being a principal member of the scientific committee of the program Biotechnology D and Mfor Latin American and the Caribbean (UNU-BIOLAC), she acts as director of the Center for agroecological studies in the tropic National Simon Rodriguez University (Venezuela), and coordinator of several national and international scientific projects funded by PNUD/ONUDI/UNESCO, IAEA, CyTED, CONICIT, Interamerican Bank of Development and the Venezuelan Ministry of Science and Technology. She has published a number of scientific papers in peer reviewed high-ranking journals as well as book chapters, and was part of the group of scientists that founded the IberoAmerican network on beneficial agricultural microorganisms (CyTED, Spain). She was invited as research/professor by the Crop Science Departments of the University of Florida (USA) and the Tshwane University of Technology (Pretoria, South Africa). She is an active member of the two Latin-American association of rhizobiology and was elected in 2002 academic and co-chancellor (2017-2019) of the Latin-American Academy of Science.